Dekan Decides to Craft Her Some Equipment

Cornelia did not particularly like the library.

It could be said that she rarely came here.

But if she wanted to avoid failing courses from now on, it seemed she would have to come study with Dekan more often.

They sat across from each other at a small round table.

Dekan had originally planned to finish reading before discussing their Shadow World strategy with Cornelia.

But when he looked up, he found Cornelia sitting quietly across from him with her eyes closed.

She had read for a while, but seemed to have developed a headache and put the book away again.

Then she sat still and began meditating.

Dekan found that she was remarkably good at calming her mind.

That was also part of her talent as a top-tier martial artist.

She simply did not like studying.

Dekan lightly tapped the table.

Cornelia quickly opened her eyes and turned her gaze to Dekan's face.

Dekan said, "Let me see your cards."

Cornelia took several Magic Cards from her pocket and handed them to Dekan.

Then she quietly watched him.

Dekan rubbed the cards between his fingers, frowning as he examined them.

All of Cornelia's cards were third-rank white common cards, and their stats were rather poor.

Her usual weapon seemed to be a sword.

Because every one of these cards was the same mass-produced sword.

"They get damaged..."

Cornelia said somewhat embarrassedly.

"I understand."

Dekan nodded and returned the cards to Cornelia.

Dekan had already guessed why Cornelia carried so many blank swords.

If equipment summoned by an Equipment Card was destroyed, it could not be used again until it was repaired by a repair specialist.

Cornelia's brute strength apparently broke weapons quite often.

Weapons were practically consumables to her.

And because her mana supply was not particularly abundant, while she might need to summon weapons multiple times in one battle—

She did not carry any body-enhancement Spell Cards, and she had even less need for Summon Cards.

Magic Cards were divided into three categories: Summon Cards, Spell Cards, and Equipment Cards.

Their mana consumption was Summon Cards > Spell Cards > Equipment Cards.

The combat system was accordingly divided into summoners, mages, and martial artists.

Summoners focused on tactics. They carried as many Summon Cards as possible and added a few Spell Cards depending on the situation. This suited people with high spirit and high stamina.

Mages generally carried some of all three card types. They suited people with high mana and high spirit. Besides naturally excelling at spells, they also dealt the highest damage when using Spell Cards.

Martial artists mainly carried Equipment Cards along with a small number of Spell Cards. They suited people with high strength and high stamina but insufficient spirit.

Cornelia was presumably a textbook martial artist in terms of attributes.

"Can I see the results of your four-attribute test?" Dekan asked.

Cornelia took out a sheet of paper, wrote and drew on it for a moment, then handed it to Dekan.

It read:

Strength SSS Mana C Stamina S Spirit D

These were her four-attribute growth ratings, tested when she enrolled.

Dekan remembered his own: Strength E, Mana C, Stamina D, Spirit SS.

In truth, reaching A rank in even one attribute was already exceptionally impressive.

S rank was the realm of geniuses, while anything above that was monster-class.

Dekan had originally thought that an SS-rank spirit growth rating made him an absurdly gifted individual.

He had not expected someone to actually test at SSS rank.

Dekan thought it over. Cornelia still had tremendous room to improve in combat power, if he made some cards suited to her.

Since they would likely be teaming up often from now on, he might as well update her cards before they set out.

"When do we enter the Shadow World?"

After seeing Dekan fall silent for a long time, Cornelia asked the question she cared about most.

"Give me two weeks."

Dekan replied.

He needed time to craft some equipment for Cornelia, and he also had to wait for Crown of Pain's cooldown to reset.

After all, they were going into a real Shadow World. As a squishy little guy, he would be safer with one more means of staying alive.

Those two weeks would also give Dekan time to settle his elective courses properly.

Cornelia nodded at his words.

Having agreed on a time to enter the Shadow World together, Cornelia happily said goodbye to Dekan and left the library.

Over the next two weeks, Dekan attended his required classes on time every day.

Although these classes were practically a waste of time for him, he could tolerate this workload.

He would just treat them as a break.

Besides, if he sat in the back and read books borrowed from the library, the teachers would not bother him.

After all, hardly anyone in the classroom was seriously listening to the lectures.

As long as they followed the principle of "do whatever you want without disturbing others," the teachers turned a blind eye to students slacking off.

After leaving the Class A classroom, Dekan would sit in on elective classes that interested him.

But in the end, he chose only two electives.

Since Cornelia did not plan to take a single elective, she seemed especially free.

Dekan found that whenever he went to the library, he would run into Cornelia.

She always sat at the small round table the two of them frequented.

Although Cornelia did not like studying, she was a good student and worked hard on her homework.

It was just that whenever she did math problems, she occasionally began gritting her teeth.

She seemingly truly had no idea how to solve them.

At times like those, Dekan would kindly hand her a slip of paper with hints written on it.

Although Dekan sat across from her reading, whenever he saw her get stuck, he would write down a few formulas and solution ideas on a blank sheet to help Cornelia.

Whenever she saw Dekan's hints, she quickly found the right approach.

She was finally convinced that Dekan was genuinely very good at studying.

In the end, Cornelia simply moved her chair beside Dekan.

Whenever she encountered a difficulty, she would look at him.

Dekan could only helplessly pick up his pen and write and draw on her scratch paper.

The mathematics of this world mainly focused on arithmetic and algebra, with difficulty roughly equivalent to the middle school mathematics of Dekan's previous life.

As someone who had once been relentlessly competitive in academics, it was far too easy for Dekan.

Gradually, Cornelia also chose to stay beside Dekan while doing homework for the other two required cultural courses.

Because she had discovered that Dekan was truly good at all of this.

Dekan would not tell her the answer outright, but every time, he could identify exactly where her knowledge was lacking and point her toward the right path as quickly as possible.

If that was the case...

Perhaps next semester, she could consider taking a few of the same electives as him?

The failing grades Cornelia feared most no longer haunted her like a nightmare.

She felt much happier every day.

Two weeks passed quickly.

If there was one thing that drew the most attention from new students in the third week after school began, it was undoubtedly Dekan and Cornelia's plan to challenge the Shadow World.

Even quite a few older students and teachers began paying attention to the pair's first battle.

Students from the three combat academies could challenge Shadow Worlds during class periods.

Since some Shadow Worlds took very little time while others took much longer, they might miss part of their classes because of it.

However, they only needed to obtain approval from their class advisor in advance.

The missed classes could be made up after they returned.

In fact, very few new students challenged Shadow Worlds immediately after enrolling.

Students generally only began tackling Shadow Worlds in their second semester.

First-year students needed additional permission from their class advisor before they could challenge them.

Dekan and Cornelia went to Professor Arnold's office and explained their intentions.

Professor Arnold hesitated slightly, but after thinking it over, he approved their request.

If they had been other students, he would not have allowed them to challenge a Shadow World this early.

But if it was Dekan and Cornelia, there should not be any problem.

Though he could not help worrying a little about the safety of any other challengers matched with them.