Kevin's Counterattack

Lynn was having a great time, which meant someone else was not.

Kevin had been living in a daze these past few days.

Whenever he meditated, Lynn's plundering method of absorbing negative energy particles left him unable to cope.

After several days of meditation, his results were not even as good as what he had achieved in a single day before.

This made his mood worsen by the day, and he wore a sour expression even when he paid his morning respects to his mentor.

This abnormality was quickly noticed by his mentor, an official wizard specializing in experiments involving flesh and souls—Murphy the Soul Ripper.

Kevin's talent was passable. Though Morpheus did not hold much hope for him, he did not want Kevin to waste his talent like this either.

After all, his fairly abundant flesh and soul, coupled with his affinity for death, could still be used to make some decent things.

If he died in the Three Trials of Life and Death three months from now, his corpse would become academy property anyway. It would be better for him to contribute to Morpheus's experiments now rather than go to waste.

Morpheus's laboratory was filled with the mingled smell of formalin and scorched souls. Breathing it in for too long made one feel dizzy.

After paying his usual respects, Kevin was about to leave when his mentor suddenly called him back.

Kevin's heart gave a frightened jolt.

Had the sour expression he had been wearing these past few days angered his mentor?

Thinking of this, Kevin hurriedly rubbed his stiff face and forced out a fawning smile.

"Mentor, you called for me?"

Morpheus beckoned Kevin closer, his fingers tapping against the experiment table as his sinister gaze swept over Kevin's slightly dull face, darkened by stagnant mental power.

"Kevin, your meditation progress... seems to have stalled."

Morpheus's voice was hoarse.

"Tell me, what is interfering with you? With your talent, you should not be like this."

"If you fail to pass the assessment three months from now... you know the consequences."

Kevin shuddered in fright.

So his mentor was dissatisfied with his cultivation progress.

But... Mentor had actually been keeping an eye on my training? I thought he had never cared about me at all.

A warm current rose in Kevin's heart.

He failed to hear the chill in his mentor's words. Instead, he thought his mentor was concerned about his progress. Gratitude at being valued and the urge to air his grievances surged within him.

"Mentor! You must stand up for me!"

As if he had found someone to rely on, Kevin hurriedly poured out his grievances, embellishing the story of how his roommate Lynn had "bullied" him.

His words, however, were filled with jealousy and resentment.

"Lynn? Your roommate is that Lynn with the exceptional soul talent?" A faint, nearly imperceptible glimmer flashed in Morpheus's eyes.

He had long coveted the soul of that genius apprentice under Gregor. It was undoubtedly prime experimental material!

Who would have thought Kevin shared a dormitory with him!

Worthy of a black wizard, a vicious plan took shape in his mind in an instant.

Morpheus forced a seemingly sympathetic but actually hypocritical expression onto his face and sighed.

"So that is how it is. Being suppressed by a genius truly does not feel good. Being unable to calm your mind while meditating is indeed a great taboo."

Kevin's eyes instantly welled with tears.

His mentor still cared about him!

"Mentor, you have to help me. Help me change dormitories, or let me stay in the laboratory. I can clean the laboratory for you every day..."

At the moment, Kevin had no thoughts of taking revenge on Lynn. He merely wanted to get as far away from that devil as possible.

Morpheus raised a hand to interrupt Kevin's endless rambling. After pondering for a moment, he took out an inconspicuous gray-black stone from his sleeve.

The stone's surface was rough, and it was no larger than a fingernail. A faint energy fluctuation could barely be sensed from it.

"This is a Mind-Splitting Stone."

Morpheus handed the stone to Kevin, his tone seductive.

"You only need to secretly place it where Lynn meditates every day. It will gradually affect his meditation, letting him experience what it feels like to have slow progress as well."

"By then, he naturally will have neither the mind nor the ability to 'bully' you anymore."

Kevin was overjoyed. He hurriedly accepted the stone and thanked Morpheus profusely.

The moment the stone entered his hand, Kevin felt dazed, as though he had fallen into a dream.

This Mind-Splitting Stone truly was extraordinary!

Watching Kevin leave, clutching the Mind-Splitting Stone as though it were a priceless treasure, Morpheus let out a strange, cackling laugh.

What kind of monster could an exceptional soul talent create?

Poor Kevin had no idea that he had become nothing more than a pawn being used.

Holding the soul stone, Kevin had no mind for anything else and returned straight to the dormitory.

Before Lynn returned, he carefully used a dagger to carve a small groove into the center of the stone bed where Lynn usually sat, then embedded the Concentration Stone within it.

Finally, he smoothed over the surface with a mixture of stone powder and adhesive, concealing it extremely well.

After finishing all this, Kevin felt both anxious and a twisted sort of pleasure.

He sat cross-legged on his own bed, with no mood to meditate, eagerly awaiting the "good show" that would begin once Lynn returned.

Lynn, you were the one who showed no mercy first. Don't blame me now!

After finishing a day of laboratory work and raiding the library, Lynn had dinner directly at the public cafeteria.

He ate a portion of negative energy moss cakes, which provided basic energy but tasted like chewing wax, along with a cup of bitter Nightshadow Flower tea that could slightly soothe the mind.

When he returned to the dormitory, he saw Kevin watching him with an expectant, even excited expression.

Lynn frowned slightly, unable to understand what madness this fellow was up to now.

He had been cursing him like mad just yesterday, so why was he suddenly so happy today?

Could it be that Lynn's oppression had driven him insane?

Seeing Lynn look at him suspiciously, Kevin's heart tightened. With a sudden flash of inspiration, he gave a foolish grin and said,

"The weather's really nice today!"

Nice weather?

Could this sunless demi-plane ever have nice weather?

Lynn ignored Kevin, who seemed like an idiot.

After using a Magic Trick to clean the filth from himself, he walked straight to his stone bed, preparing to begin his routine meditation.

However, when Lynn sat down cross-legged and tried to enter a meditative state, he felt an unprecedented irritation.

The energy particles surrounding his mental core were no longer as docile as usual. Instead, they were restless and unsettled.

An indistinct force also seemed to be tugging at his consciousness, trying to pull it out of his body!

Had something gone wrong with his meditation?

An ordinary apprentice might have doubted it, but for Lynn...

Impossible! Absolutely impossible!

There was no way meditation with one hundred percent Analysis could go wrong!

Thinking of Kevin's strange behavior just now, Lynn immediately became alert and stopped meditating.

Was this brat behind it?

He directly activated Mental Perception and scanned his surroundings, but found nothing wrong. All the energy around him was no different from usual.

Was I just being paranoid?

Lynn felt somewhat doubtful.

Then an idea struck him, and for the first time, he used the Analysis function on himself.