Watch Me Play Dumb and Screw Him Over

By evening, everyone of suitable age had completed their aptitude testing.

The ship sailed majestically away from the harbor, bound for the Wizard Academy across the ocean.

First level of the inner cabin, dining hall.

Ahab sat quietly in a corner. His gaze swept across the long dining table, and he quickly spotted several familiar oak barrels.

After the ship set sail, Gray had gathered all the apprentices aboard in the dining hall to announce the ship's rules and let everyone get acquainted.

"Hello, I'm..."

Greetings and conversations rose and fell throughout the dining hall.

But only a small number of people drank the rum.

After all, this was an unfamiliar place filled with unfamiliar people, and the unfathomable First-Rank Apprentice Gray was seated right in front of them.

It was only natural that most of them could not relax.

Ahab watched coldly from the sidelines and felt that the timing was about right.

He picked up a wooden tankard as wide as a bowl, complete with a handle, and filled it from one of the barrels.

"Getting everyone to drink isn't difficult. I just need to do what I'm best at."

And what was he best at?

The low-EQ answer: ruthless scheming and shamelessness.

The high-EQ answer: before his transmigration, there had been a popular internet phrase. What was it again—

He remembered. Watch me play dumb and screw him over.

"Oh, what a wonderful evening! Please direct all eyes toward me, because I have an announcement to make!"

Ahab rose from his seat and raised his voice slightly, slipping naturally into that translated-novel style of speech.

The dining hall immediately fell silent. As expected, the apprentices who had been eating or whispering to one another stopped what they were doing and turned to look at him.

"My name is Ahab Gul. Although I only have 6 points of mental power and a second-rate meditation talent, I truly want to be friends with everyone. Please allow me to offer you all a drink!"

...The dining hall froze awkwardly for several seconds, until some apprentice somewhere could no longer hold it in and snorted.

Was this guy freshly weaned or something???

Ever since becoming provisional apprentices and boarding the Ferry Ship, aptitude had been an unavoidable topic among them.

The apprentices seated together in the dining hall also had similar aptitudes.

What was this guy even saying? Having the worst aptitude on the entire ship was one thing, but wanting to be friends? What kind of naïve, thunderous, brain-dead statement was that?

Was his understanding of the world still stuck at the age of six?

Didn't he know that society was competitive?

"Ah, there's no need for everyone to stand. I'll pour the drinks for you. I sincerely want to be friends with everyone!"

Ahab acted as though he had not noticed those amused looks at all. He casually picked up a nearby cup and ladled a drink for the apprentice beside him.

The apprentice beside him looked Ahab up and down. Seeing his earnest gaze and sincere expression, he could not help laughing.

After taking a sip of rum, he asked with malicious amusement, "Who taught you to be so proactive about making friends? Your mother?"

"My grandmother told me that when you go out, you should make more friends. You're such a good person, as sweet as my grandmother's baked apple pie."

The laughter in the dining hall could no longer be restrained.

After clinking cups with the apprentice beside him, Ahab moved on to the next apprentice, still repeating the same routine of pouring a drink and clinking cups.

The atmosphere in the dining hall was exceptionally cheerful. Many apprentices even raised their cups on their own, sipping their drinks as they watched the monkey show.

Even Gray, the senior apprentice who had remained silent at the head of the table, could not hold back a few laughs.

"I have to say, recruiting this person... no, recruiting this monkey to liven up the atmosphere was truly the right choice."

Gray harbored no suspicion whatsoever toward Ahab's actions. In fact, he sincerely felt that this fit perfectly with his longstanding prejudice against low-aptitude apprentices.

Gray had already served as an instructor for five full cohorts of freshmen.

Back then, he had also naïvely believed that aptitude was not the key, and that many factors influenced a wizard's development.

If someone had poor aptitude, they could simply develop their other potential. There were no useless apprentices in the world!

Then Gray received countless harsh lessons.

Reality had proven time and again that poor aptitude meant being inferior in every respect, sometimes even lacking a screw in the head.

Some blew themselves up while conducting experiments. Some hanged themselves after being rejected by female apprentices. Some achieved nothing in their research, then turned around and blamed their instructors for not teaching them properly.

Now there was another bizarre case: someone who did not care what level he was at and immediately tried to build connections and make friends!

Ahab Gul, that meant you!

Gray was nearly laughing his teeth out in his heart. The core of all connections was one's own ability. Did this fool not understand such a simple truth?

Gray was even beginning to look forward to seeing what tricks this monkey could pull.

"Instructor Gray, Instructor Gray!"

"Hm? What is it?"

Gray instinctively looked up, only to see an apprentice clutching his own throat with both hands, his face flushed red.

"I... I can't breathe!"

Gray was startled. Why had he worked so hard to recruit apprentices and become an instructor? Was it not so that the apprentices under his name could achieve results and earn him a large amount of Academy Contribution?

The death of even one apprentice was undoubtedly a loss.

Except for particularly terrible ones.

"Heart rate: 180 beats. Swallowing reflex has failed... This is poisoning?"

Gray hurried over to the flushed apprentice. After a rapid examination, he reached a conclusion that made his heart race.

Which item had been poisoned? Damn it, it had to be those black wizard academies again. They could not win apprentices through competition, so they had started resorting to poisoning.

"Everyone, put down whatever you're holding. Don't eat or drink anything. Wait for me to eliminate the possibilities one by one..."

Before Gray could finish, several more apprentices convulsed and collapsed to the floor. Some gripped their own throats, some pounded their abdomens, and one person's face had even turned bluish-purple, a sign of suffocation.

"Damn it, what exactly is going on?"

In the time it took to say one sentence, more than a dozen additional apprentices had collapsed and begun convulsing.

The first few apprentices had even lost their heartbeats.

"Teacher, Teacher! Something's happened over here!"

Gray pulled out a crystalline blue orb and began making frantic calls for help.

This was simply insane. Even if those black wizard academies had done something underhanded, they could not possibly have poisoned everything. Every single item on the Ferry Ship had to be inspected.

Since only one or two items had been poisoned, it could not possibly be such a coincidence that everyone had consumed those things!

Ahab silently blinked, and the corner of his mouth rose by another pixel.

Originally, Ahab had thought that pretending to faint would be difficult. That senior apprentice would likely check his breathing and heartbeat.

Now that problem was gone.

Although he was not suffocating, he did feel slightly dizzy.

That made sense. The Future Diary had only said it would not be fatal; it had not said there would be no adverse reactions.

Then it was time to faint.

Following his body's sensations, Ahab threw his head back and fell to the floor with a thud.