"I'm a new student at Cassell College. I'm here to enroll today," Lu Mingfei answered Fingel's question as he ate the last bite of his sandwich.
"Holy shit!" Fingel turned around and grabbed Lu Mingfei's hand. "My junior!"
He fished a magnetic ticket out of his pocket. A vast tree with luxuriant branches and leaves was depicted in silver on its jet-black surface.
"Hello, senior." Lu Mingfei wasn't surprised. He had already suspected as much when he saw Fingel's book. "We should be waiting for the same train. Do you know when it arrives?"
"There's usually one at the start of term. This one's a special service. An 'S-Rank' student from China is enrolling early..." Fingel's voice suddenly dwindled halfway through. He stared at Lu Mingfei in disbelief. "If I may be so bold, what's your name, junior?"
"Lu Mingfei," he said.
"You're the 'S-Rank'?" Fingel sprang to his feet, making a tremendous fuss. "Then what are you waiting here for? Come on, let's go to the VIP entrance!"
Fingel only had a shoulder bag himself, so he volunteered to take half of Lu Mingfei's luggage. This down-on-his-luck-looking young man might not have been any weaker than Lu Mingfei. With the large backpack containing the pressure cooker slung over his shoulder and a suitcase in tow, he led Lu Mingfei straight toward the VIP entrance.
The station's VIP entrance had its own ticket scanner and security checkpoint. Two tall, burly guards stood on either side of the red carpet at the entrance, looking thoroughly professional.
After some discussion and the successful validation of Lu Mingfei's ticket, Fingel was allowed into the luxurious VIP lounge with him as his friend.
The decor inside was very different from that outside. Gone were the main waiting hall's marble walls, columns, and circular wall lamps from the previous century. Here, the style was distinctly modern and minimalist. Low partitions fashioned into open bookshelves divided the sofas and small round tables into separate, private spaces. Beneath the warm orange lighting, there were few passengers, and aside from the occasional murmured conversation, it was very quiet.
Fingel and Lu Mingfei found a place to put down their luggage.
"Once your ticket goes through the scanner, the college will respond pretty quickly." By the time Fingel said this, he had already raided the refreshments area and returned to their seats with his arms full of food and drinks.
Lu Mingfei accepted the can of cola he offered, but declined the snacks.
"Senior, it isn't the usual start of term. Why are you here?" Lu Mingfei asked.
Fingel chewed furiously on the plain potato chips in his mouth. He had just stuffed in an entire handful; clearly, the sandwich hadn't filled him up. His words came out muffled through the crumbs. "I need to make up some credits, so I had to sacrifice my precious summer vacation. I figured I'd catch your private train back to school."
"Does everyone know I'm 'S-Rank' now?" Lu Mingfei settled into a comfortable position on the sofa, growing ever more curious about Cassell College. It had an Executive Department that seemed to function as an armed enforcement agency, and its students possessed the power of what Nono called "dragons," yet they still had to scramble for credits like students at an ordinary university.
"Quite a few people know. You're the first 'S-Rank' in decades, after all. An extraordinary talent. Everyone's paying attention." Fingel felt a little guilty. He was the one who had uploaded the video to the Night Watchman forum; Lu Mingfei's face had become so widely known largely because of him.
"I see. The first in decades. No wonder they're taking it so seriously." Lu Mingfei nodded thoughtfully.
"Hey, he's here." Fingel suddenly pointed toward the far end of the private passage.
Lu Mingfei looked over. A man in a dark green conductor's uniform had appeared beside the ticket gate at some point. A gold conductor's badge was pinned to his cap. If not for the card scanner in his hand, he would have looked like a character straight out of a black-and-white film.
"CC1000 Express, passengers please prepare to board. Passengers please prepare to board." The conductor's voice broke the lounge's quiet atmosphere.
Lu Mingfei quickly noticed something was wrong. The passengers scattered among the booths showed no reaction, and the guards at the entrance didn't even look over. A strangely dressed conductor had appeared out of thin air without attracting a single curious glance. Surely they couldn't all be used to this? Fingel had said this train only ran when Cassell College's term began.
Fingel obligingly shouldered the luggage. "Come on, junior. Our train's here."
"Something's odd about him. Can the others not see him?" Lu Mingfei frowned.
"That's his Word Spirit's effect. You'll understand after your orientation," Fingel explained.
Word Spirit?
Presumably, that was the "magic" manifested by the power of "dragons." Wasn't the conductor's Word Spirit essentially the night sorcery Unseen Form? It was a minor spell Lu Mingfei had obtained at the Mirage Sorcerer's Tower, one that made the caster's figure difficult to discern.
"A sorcery used by the assassins of Sellia, who would stop at nothing to accomplish their ends." That was what the sorcery scroll had said.
Lu Mingfei, however, had used it purely to make traveling easier. Though weak monsters generally couldn't see through the spell, it was of little use against stronger beings.
And "strong" no longer sufficed to describe his former enemies. Even the weakest had been a demigod and one of the Shardbearers: Godrick the Grafted.
Chapter 12: Orientation
Fingel swiped his ticket through the scanner. A green light lit up with a beep.
"Fingel, working as an 'S-Rank's' pack mule now?" The conductor looked him over. "Your rank has dropped again this year."
"Is it 'F' now?" Fingel's face fell, but he soon brightened and clapped Lu Mingfei on the shoulder. "Who says I'm a pack mule? The 'S-Rank' and I are buddies!"
Lu Mingfei neither agreed nor disagreed. He simply handed over his ticket in silence.
This senior he had just acquired seemed to be famous too, though not in a good way.
The scanner in the conductor's hand played a cheerful tune. His cold disdain toward Fingel vanished, and he rubbed his fingers together as he addressed Lu Mingfei with eager anticipation. "Welcome, Lu Mingfei!" Then he actually pulled a little notebook and a pen from his pocket. "Could I have your autograph?"
Lu Mingfei could only write his name in somewhat untidy handwriting and hand it back to the conductor.
Apparently, "S-Ranks" really were scarce at Cassell College. Everyone treated him like an endangered species.
The two followed the now-cheerful conductor onto the platform and finally saw the train prepared for Lu Mingfei. Unlike the conductor's attire, it wasn't old-fashioned at all. The high-speed train's sleek black body was merely decorated with a few white vine patterns.
The people at Cassell College were practical, after all. Classical artistry couldn't replace the speed of a modern train.
A man stood tall in the train's only open doorway. He wore a black suit, with a scarlet rose tucked into his breast pocket, and his hair was as silver-white as snow.
He smiled in the sunlight, his silver-gray eyes like torches.
When Lu Mingfei met his gaze, the wary gravity he felt when facing a formidable enemy swept over him. It was utterly different from what he had felt from the two A-Ranks, Ye Sheng and Jude Jiqu.
This man was dangerous.
He stopped three or four paces away from the man. It was the distance he knew best for both attack and defense.
"Lu Mingfei, I've finally been able to meet you," the elderly man said softly.
He was like a character in an old-fashioned RPG who waited for the protagonist destined to draw the holy sword. Now that his chosen hero had finally arrived, he would give him a quest or entrust him with some peerless treasure.
"Principal Angers!" Fingel cried out behind Lu Mingfei.
"Fingel, I hope you manage to graduate this year." Angers also noticed the burly figure behind Lu Mingfei. His smile faded a little, though he still offered his good wishes kindly.
At that moment, he was every inch a kindly elder and educator.
Only then did Lu Mingfei realize that the man before him was the leader of Cassell College, who seemed to have known him long before and might well know the secret of his power.
"Do you know me?" he asked outright.
"Let's talk aboard the train. I'm here today to answer your questions." Angers shrugged, stepped away from the doorway, and gestured for him to enter.
Lu Mingfei accepted without hesitation and followed him inside.
Fingel lagged a moment behind. He slipped a concealed miniature camera back into his shoulder bag, licked his lips, and muttered to himself, "Big news. Definitely big news."
The train sped through woods lush with spring greenery. The elegant elderly man raised his black tea, took a sip, and looked at the boy across the long oak table. "Ask whatever you like."
They sat in an exquisitely furnished carriage, with Victorian-patterned wallpaper, solid-wood-framed windows, and dark green leather sofas-a thoroughly European style. Once seated, Lu Mingfei and Fingel changed into uniforms like the one Ye Sheng had worn. The clothes seemed to have been prepared in advance. Lu Mingfei turned back his cuff and found his name embroidered in dark green thread: MingFeiLu.
Fingel sat meekly off to one side, quietly enjoying his hot chocolate.
"I heard you were the one who assigned me 'S-Rank.' May I ask why?" Meeting Angers's eyes, Lu Mingfei raised the question that troubled him most.
Angers smiled, but didn't answer directly. "Do you feel 'S-Rank' doesn't suit you?"
His gaze was full of appreciation and admiration-for the boy's piercing eyes, and for the molten Golden Eyes in that video.
Lu Mingfei raised an eyebrow.
The counterquestion tossed the issue straight back to him. His soul had returned from the Lands Between, tempered by a hundred years of war and the throne. Perhaps he deserved an "S-Rank" assessment now. But the ordinary eighteen-year-old boy he had once been was the real problem. If he pressed the issue, however, there would be no avoiding the question of why his personality had changed so dramatically.
Lu Mingfei made no attempt to conceal it.
"You sent the admission letter before I awakened the power of 'dragons.' I don't think I should have been rated 'S-Rank' back then."
"No, no, no." Angers shook his head. "We shouldn't treat the you of those two periods as separate people. You merely recovered the excellence that was always yours."
He continued unhurriedly, "Very well. Let me give you a few facts that should convince you. Your parents, Lu Lincheng and Jovini, are both genuine 'S-Ranks.' So it wouldn't even be surprising if you were an atavistic pureblood dragon. Only joking, of course."
Lu Mingfei was mildly surprised. He had suspected that his birth parents were no ordinary people, but hadn't expected both of them to be "S-Ranks." In his brief contact with Cassell College as an "S-Rank" himself, he had felt as rare and precious as a giant panda. Everyone seemed to see the reflection of some monster when they looked at him.
There was another point worth noting in Angers's words: did humans here inherit the power of "dragons" through their bloodlines?
That seemed to make sense.
"Let's start with the standard orientation." Watching the thoughtful Lu Mingfei, Angers passed him a document.
Lu Mingfei flipped the confidentiality agreement straight to the signature section and quickly signed it.
Angers took back the signed document and wasted no time beginning what he called orientation. He explained Cassell College's academic system and closed-campus management, which were essentially no different from an ordinary university's, until he finally reached the heart of it all: "dragons."
He rose and walked to the enormous oil painting behind him, grasped a corner of the canvas covering it, and drew it aside with an elegant motion.
An epic oil painting was revealed, depicting a scene that seemed to belong to an age of myth.
The sky was a mixture of iron-gray and the colors of flame. A lone, colossal tree stood beneath it, its dead branches stretching in every direction to weave a dense net that supported the cracked heavens. Dry bones littered the wasteland. A massive black beast rose from deep within the heaps of remains, skulls hanging from its wings. It spread its enormous membranous wings, lifted its head, and breathed black fire into the sky.
"So this is a dragon..." Lu Mingfei narrowed his eyes.
The black dragon in the painting-its body, wings, head, and everything else-closely resembled the Ancient Dragons and Drakes Lu Mingfei had encountered before. Those ancient creatures that had ruled the Lands Between before the Golden Order possessed the power to destroy heaven and earth. They were the sovereigns of the skies, wielding flame and thunder.
"Brother, how does it make you feel?"
A boy asked softly from behind Lu Mingfei.
Lu Mingfei was absolutely certain that Fingel was the only person behind him, and he would never make a sound like that.
A dream!
Chapter 13: Professor, you've been blinded by the appointment letter
Lu Mingfei turned around and immediately realized he had fallen into a dream again.
Fingel had vanished. His half-finished hot chocolate still sat on the table, but it had gone completely cold and solidified in the cup. It was as though, in a single instant, the train had traveled through countless years. Everyone else had passed away, leaving only Lu Mingfei to awaken long afterward.
The boy sat beside a window at the rear of the carriage, gazing absently outside. Bathed in silver-white moonlight, he resembled an exquisitely beautiful statue.
"How does what make me feel?" It was Lu Mingfei's second time entering the boy's domain, and he no longer panicked. He had learned part of the truth about the world and had formed a guess about the boy's identity.
The boy turned and lifted his head to look at the oil painting behind Lu Mingfei, his expression contemptuous and mocking. "Then let me ask something else, brother. What does death mean to you?"
Lu Mingfei noticed that the boy was different from their first encounter. This time, he seemed eager to talk. "This is our second meeting. Shouldn't you give me your name first?"
"Last time, you were the one who summoned me, brother. As far as I'm concerned, this should count as our first meeting," the boy corrected him.
"You call me brother, but I don't have a younger brother." Lu Mingfei shook his head.
"My name is Lu Mingze," the boy said evenly.
Even someone as composed as Lu Mingfei found this bewildering. No matter how he looked at it, he couldn't reconcile this elegant, beautiful boy with the chubby kid at his aunt's house.
"All right, Lu Mingze. Why do you keep pulling me into dreams?" Lu Mingfei accepted the boy's claim. If he didn't want to give his real name, that was fine. It wasn't the point.
Lu Mingze didn't answer. He rose, walked over to Lu Mingfei's side, and examined the oil painting up close.
"The oldest emperor recorded in history. The Dragon Emperor, Nidhogg."