Chapter 91: Fated Rival

The street was crowded with people. Wearing a dusty gray robe and with his face hidden beneath the shadow of his hood, the other man passed by him with complete indifference.

Shael noticed that the man’s walk was unnaturally rigid. Every step seemed precisely measured, the spacing between them almost identical, and he moved straight through the crowd.

For some reason, Shael suddenly found him strangely unfamiliar, as though he had been transformed from the inside out.

And yet, neither his appearance nor his protective field seemed to have changed in the slightest.

After a first evolution, an evolver would also be surrounded by a defense similar to a guardian aura.

However, an evolver’s defense was more like an invisible suit of armor laid over the skin, more like a built-in system of self-protection.

The man’s defense had not been damaged, and yet Shael felt it had somehow grown much weaker; the danger it gave off was far less than it had been two days ago.

Shael froze. The long-remembered storyline flashed through his mind, and after another glance at the man’s back, he headed for the classroom. “It seems history is surging forward, unstoppable. His destined tragedy is about to unfold.”

As Morent’s most important and first successful experimental subject, how could he possibly be ignored?

Having enjoyed the academy’s full support and poured-over resources, he would naturally have to pay the corresponding price by becoming a subject of their research. In the end, he would bring them all manner of sorrow too painful to recall.

Inside a greenhouse-like indoor cultivation chamber, Shael looked at the strange little creature screeching before him, while his thoughts remained fixed on what had happened earlier.

This was a practical lesson in which the students personally observed the habits of specially cultivated organisms so that the knowledge they had learned from the textbooks could be thoroughly absorbed.

Morent had many totem-creature breeding bases, capable of cultivating totem creatures with abilities for land, sea, and air. Whatever one wanted, it could be found there, and the cost was more than half lower than that of other factions, which was why so many people came to trade.

The creature being observed this time was a rather marvelous species. It looked like a frog, with four legs, but its skin was blue-green, and its huge mouth was full of sharp teeth. Even stranger, a root-like stalk resembling an onion grew from its back, existing with it in a symbiotic state.

“The Bulbfrog Beast begins in animal form. From the moment it is born, the stalk on its back absorbs sunlight during the day to provide it with energy. But as it grows, that stalk gradually becomes larger. Once it evolves, the stalk on its back will turn into a bud as large as its own body, and it will no longer be able to hop around freely, thus fully transforming into a plant totem creature...” Gafiel, who was giving the lecture this time, explained at length.

Shael was a little distracted, still thinking about how to intervene in the plot that was about to begin.

This matter concerned Leslie’s enormous transformation, which would set him on the road to contending for the academy’s power. In the end, it was even because the academy head died in battle that he became the academy’s only level-four existence.

Morent Academy possessed many treasures that made Shael’s eyes burn with desire. If he could take advantage of the coming events to get his hands on a batch of them, he would make a fortune.

Gah!

At that moment, one of the Bulbfrog Beasts before him suddenly sprang up, opening its huge mouth and lunging straight for his face.

Shael snapped back to attention and was about to dodge when a hand reached out from the side, lightly grasped the stalk on the creature’s back, and casually hurled it to the ground.

“Be careful. These things are highly poisonous, and they can corrode a guardian aura,” said the one who had intervened.

“Thank you.” Though the little creature could not possibly harm him, the other’s action was clearly well meant. Shael nodded his thanks, and after seeing the man’s face, surprise flashed in his eyes—the protagonist of the earlier plotline had appeared.

“Hello. It seems you know me?”

The newcomer wore a silver ceremonial robe, embroidered with splendid gold trim, and clusters of blood-red flowers adorned his chest.

“Then again, that’s only natural. With the fame I have at the academy, it would be strange if people didn’t know me.”

Without waiting for Shael’s reply, the other continued speaking to himself. There was no trace of arrogance in his tone, only a matter-of-fact statement.

“Indeed. The champion of the academy tournament, after all. I suppose nobody here doesn’t know you,” Shael said with a smile.

The man before him was slightly taller, refined in manner, but his pale complexion, the madness and coldness swirling in his eyes, and his long blood-red hair gave his words no warmth at all. Instead, they carried an eerie, unsettling quality.

The surrounding students all turned to look, their gazes fixed entirely upon him, filled with deep awe and a faint hint of longing.

Clearly, he enjoyed tremendous popularity within the academy, an absolute star far beyond what Shael, a mere outsider, could compare with.

It seemed the other had merely helped him on a whim. After passing Shael, he walked over to Gafiel and spoke to him in a low voice.

Shael watched his back in silence, and at last he thought of how to enter the plot.

His name was Isaac Glenos. He was currently the brightest student at Morent Academy, and also the heir of the Glenos family, one of Morent’s three great families—a chosen son born with a golden spoon in his mouth.

It had to be said that heaven had never been fair. He possessed monstrous talent that made countless people envy, hate, and resent him, and he could command a support totem several times stronger than Shael’s.

More importantly, what made him so monstrous was that his supreme totem beast possessed a special ability: it could form a terrifying source-energy field around itself.

This field covered a radius of thirty meters around him. Anyone who entered it would be weakened in every respect—slower, weaker, and burdened by a crushing pressure, leaving them only to be slaughtered at his mercy.

Even more terrifying, this field could extend to his totem beast as well, allowing its attacks to carry the same effect and forming an exceptionally dangerous group aura buff.

And yet, as one of the Seven Children of Fate, he had been born with a destiny that meant only one of him and Leslie could survive.

The two of them were the academy’s carefully cultivated monstrous geniuses, intended to see whether one of them could complete super evolution and become the academy’s second peerless powerhouse.

They had competed from the very first level, evolving step by step, through ultimate evolution and on to super evolution, only for the winner to finally emerge when Leslie crushed him with his unrivaled overall physical prowess.

Before that, he had kept Leslie suppressed the entire way, humiliating him again and again, and on many occasions had come very close to killing this fated rival for good.

A trace of pity appeared on Shael’s face. “Such enviable talent and such an enviable birthright. This is the true protagonist template that countless people dream of. It’s a pity fate never stood on your side—and the victory you abandoned was one you gave up yourself...”