Mutation

Ma Hongjun was incredibly fast, vanishing from sight in the blink of an eye.

Zhu Zhuqing left without looking back, and Dai Mubai hurried after her.

"Boss Dai, wait a second." Seeing Dai Mubai about to leave, An Chen hurried forward and called out.

"Is there something else?" Dai Mubai slowed down and turned back. "Don't interrupt my cultivation. Spit it out."

You call that rushing off to cultivate? Aren't you chasing a woman? An Chen grumbled inwardly.

He hurried over and asked, "Boss Dai, has the headmaster always worn a monocle?"

Dai Mubai replied, "Yeah. He's worn that monocle ever since I entered the academy. What about it?"

An Chen shook his head. "Nothing."

"His glasses really are distinctive. A gold-rimmed monocle—there isn't another one like it on the whole continent. Pretty stylish." After saying that, Dai Mubai sped up and chased after her.

There wasn't another one like it on the whole continent?

Had he really remembered wrong? Or had the original novel simply not described it accurately enough?

After thinking it over, An Chen decided to ask Tang San and Xiao Wu, who had not yet left.

He wanted to see what Flender had looked like when they bought the Plate Crystal a few days ago.

With that in mind, An Chen turned around and lightly tapped Tang San's sleeve.

"What is it?" Tang San turned back and asked in confusion.

"Hey, let me ask you something. When you met the headmaster a few days ago, was he wearing that monocle too?" An Chen asked.

"Yeah, the same one he's wearing today. Even his clothes were the same." Tang San nodded.

An Chen nodded and looked toward Flender, who was lecturing Oscar and Ning Rongrong.

Seeing that three people still had not left, Flender did not mind. He raised a hand and adjusted his gold-rimmed monocle.

After a lengthy speech, he nodded to Oscar and Ning Rongrong and sent them off to run.

That was the same as in the original novel—making those two Auxiliary Soul Masters run laps for training, An Chen thought to himself.

After watching for a while without finding anything, An Chen was about to leave when an old man came running from the academy gates all the way to Flender's side.

Teacher Li Yusong? Wasn't he at the entrance testing Soul Power? Why had he come over?

An Chen was puzzled.

"Headmaster." Li Yusong was slightly out of breath. "There's something I need to report."

Flender smiled, the corners of his mouth lifting. "What is it?"

Li Yusong lowered his voice. "A message came from Spirit Hall. They want us to make up a payment this month. I just went to check the accounts..."

He stopped halfway through.

Flender's gaze settled quietly on him.

A teasing smile slowly appeared on his face.

He simply watched Li Yusong in silence.

An Chen had not paid much attention at first, but then his intuition began screaming a warning, and a voice rang out in his mind:

[ Ding! Warning triggered! ]

Clown Warning -1

[System Ability] Divination ×3, Clown Warning ×3

An Chen's pupils contracted. This system warning ability had been his reward after absorbing a Soul Ring last time.

Compared to Divination, this warning was passive. It would only trigger when danger approached.

An Chen's heart tightened. Then he saw Li Yusong, standing beside Flender, begin to mutate.

His face changed first. His wrinkled features rapidly hardened, like dried tree sap congealing across skin.

The corners of his mouth curled upward and split toward both sides. He tried to make a sound, but only a dry scraping noise emerged.

Countless tangled tentacles burst from his body, and the nearby space filled with colors and sounds that drove one mad.

Then pain stabbed through An Chen's eyes, and his vision went black.

But the system warning continued. He felt as though a giant axe had split open his skull. The pain was unbearable, his consciousness began to scatter, and countless thoughts rose in his heart.

"I worked so hard to cultivate my Soul Power. What gives you the right to say I cheated..."

"Zhu Zhuqing's figure is pretty nice..."

"If everyone on the continent gave me one Gold Soul Coin, how great would that be..."

"I transmigrated here. I have to stand at the peak of the continent and make everyone look up to me..."

"..."

Were those thoughts mine?

Then An Chen felt a sharp pain in his arm, especially in the place Li Yusong had pressed when testing people's bone age that day.

He felt something growing from his arm. It seemed to be a sapling, one that had just sprouted.

"Interesting." An Chen heard Flender's voice.

That voice scattered the thoughts in An Chen's mind.

He opened his eyes and saw Flender's monocle flash. Then the abnormalities on Li Yusong's body—no, on the tree-like tentacled monster before him—rapidly vanished, and he slowly returned to normal.

The sapling on An Chen's arm vanished as well. Something hidden deep within his body also disappeared with it, and he immediately felt much lighter mentally.

The system warning in his mind disappeared as well.

At the same time, a string of pink, fleshy tumors covered in densely packed tentacles appeared in Flender's hand. They were wet, dripping with fluid, and gave off waves of stench.

An Chen's stomach churned, and he nearly threw up.

Flender looked at the thing in his hand, the corners of his mouth rising as he said, "Ever since Mother's last invasion, some little things have slipped in too."

His tone was calm, as if he were speaking directly to An Chen.

Mother? Invasion? Slipped in?

The red moon from last time? An Chen was startled.

"Headmaster, this..." An Chen hesitated before speaking.

Flender did not answer him.

With a casual flick of his hand, the tumor that seemed to be Babbling something vanished from his grasp into thin air.

"Alright." Flender clapped his hands, then turned to the restored Li Yusong. "What were you saying just now?"

Li Yusong froze for a moment. "I... was talking about the accounts..."

He lowered his head to inspect his body and touched his face. Something seemed wrong, but he could not put his finger on it.

Flender nodded. "Continue."

Li Yusong continued reporting on the accounts, looking completely normal, as if nothing had happened.

An Chen stood where he was, a chill running down his back.

He turned to look at Oscar and Ning Rongrong.

But they were running just as before, only ten steps away. There was no way they could have missed what had just happened.

An Chen quickly walked over to Tang San and Xiao Wu, lowering his voice. "Tang San."

"Hm?" Tang San looked confused.

"Did you see what happened to the headmaster and Teacher Li just now?"

Tang San looked utterly baffled. "What happened? Wasn't the headmaster just talking with Teacher Li the whole time?"

An Chen's pupils shrank.

"Just now... Teacher Li turned into a tree and grew tentacles."

"What are you talking about?" Tang San frowned. "An Chen, are you still half asleep?"

An Chen closed his eyes, then looked at Xiao Wu.

Xiao Wu noticed his gaze and smiled at him.

She had not seen it either.

Had no one noticed anything strange?

An Chen's body trembled slightly.

He looked at Flender and found that Flender was looking at him too.

Flender smiled at him and pinched the lens of his monocle.

The Flender in the original novel had a goatee.

But this Flender had no goatee. He wore a monocle.

Everyone else believed that "it had always been that way."

Just now, Li Yusong had mutated, and Flender had pulled a string of tumors out of him.

Everyone else believed that "nothing had happened."

It was the same.

Everyone else thought, "It had always been that way," but only he felt that something was wrong.

An Chen withdrew his gaze and left quickly.

There was something wrong with this headmaster.

Very wrong!