"Poison the cockroach to keep it from fleeing, then you kick it however you desire. It’s truly a brilliant idea. Those descendants of the Zahara Clan can stir such conniving plots that are far more elaborate than mine."
"It’s fortunate that we don’t have to encounter them now."
Although first-year students were forbidden from meeting each other in Person, since they could still communicate with each other within the virtual world, this couldn’t prevent them from exchanging information, goods, and services in the physical world.
It had become a means by which other students depended on these things to earn more merit points.
"Yes, young lord Toren is right," a brown haired boy nodded in agreement.
His expression and eyes also turned sharp as he continued, "He had hidden his strength and taken advantage of that to defeat you. I doubt that he could win now that we are all aware of his tricks."
"Stop making excuses..." Jaran spat. "Even if he had caught me by surprise, it didn’t change the fact that I had utilised my clan’s technique and still... lost to him." His tone was fierce.
The brown-haired boy closed his mouth and lowered his head docilely.
Jaran clenched his hands tightly as fierce emotions flickered within his eyes.
"If it hurts your pride that much, then why don’t you challenge him to a duel before everyone? If he loses, then we can be certain that he has just gotten lucky. And it would also reinstate the fact that he had cheated. But if he wins..." Toren said with a sly smile.
"Then it means there’s something much deeper to this, and there might be another reason why the descendants of the Zahara Clan had made him a target."
Jaran halted his steps. His expression turned thoughtful as he found Toren’s suggestion reasonable.
"Tchh...! Forget it. Let’s handle the task for now and obtain our merit points for this week before discussing the Worst One. He isn’t worth the effort," Jaren responded, his expression stern as he resumed walking forward.
Witnessing this scene, Toren’s smile expanded, and he resumed walking, catching up with him.
They glanced at four students who had walked out of one of the doors beside the receptionists’ desks.
Not recognising them, they guessed that they were from either Class One or Two. Realising this, they no longer paid any attention to them.
"I recognise that person... he’s Jaran, the top third-ranked in Class three who was beaten up by the Worst One."
"Hehe...! From the looks of it, he’s about to be demoted to the top fourth rank. Tskk!! Tskk!! I wonder how trashy their skills are to be easily surpassed by the Worst One, an awakener with defective spirit veins, and a commoner."
"Hmph! They can’t even greet respectfully. Aren’t they aware that our prospects as heroes are more promising than theirs, who are at the bottom."
"Hey, they might hear us! We need to recuperate after completing our task. Besides, we don’t want to start a fight in the Dungeon Hall and risk paying for the damages with our merit points."
"Tskk! You’re right!"
They could hear the snickers and chatter as they passed each other.
The faces of the three young men turned as cold as ice.
It was as though someone had skinned a rat and fed it to them raw.
They arrived at the receptionist’s desk.
The receptionist LEDs eyes blinked.
"Welcome back, student Jaran, Toren, and Riven," the robot asked, "How may I help you?"
Toren glanced to the side, noticing that Jaran was lost in thought.
Riven didn’t dare to utter a word after the other class’s derogative remarks.
Toren sighed and responded, "We’re here to take a task."
"Request accepted. You are eligible for the following task," the robot replied.
A holographic list appeared above the table before them.
Toren scrolled through the list, selecting the tasks they had planned to take on.
When he reached the fortieth task, his expression turned into a deep frown.
"Hey, someone has taken our tasks," Toren said.
Jaran snapped out of his thoughts.
He narrowed his eyes at the holographic.
40. Collect 3 litres of a Silver-tongued Serpent’s venom: 210 merit points. Additional merit points will be awarded for each extra 3 litres. (Taken-1)
41, Eliminate a Silver-tongued Serpent: 225 merit points. Additional merit points will be awarded for each additional horned wasp eliminated. (Taken-1)
Seeing the additional information at the end of the sentence, Jaran’s eyes widened in surprise. His expression quickly turned into displeasure. f\r(e)ewe.b no\vel.com
"Did someone decide to break our arrangement and take the tasks for themselves?" Jaran asked.
Toren shook his head. "I don’t think so. I had already spoken to the others before we reached here. And they were all busy with their matters."
"It’s probably that someone has overestimated their abilities and decided to try new things."
While some tasks could be refreshed instantly, and others required a few days or a week, 50 tasks weren’t enough for the population of 300 students, all of whom were training to hone their skills and earn merit points.
They had learnt that the task list last year contained 200 tasks, but due to specific challenges the academy encountered in maintaining the dungeon, it was reduced to a mere 50.
No one knew what this challenges were except that it would take the academy some time to resolve it.
It was masked as a need to help students focus more on their training and reduce the number of injuries sustained in the dungeons.
To address this issue, several top-ranked students across classes came together to agree on when and which tasks to pick, focusing on those tasks that were hardly chosen by others to earn enough merit points.
Now, it was their Class’s turn, and someone had picked the tasks that were meant for them.
"We’ll still have to forfeit next week’s task if we don’t complete this task," Toren said, his expression gloomy.
If it had been in the first term, he wouldn’t have given it so much thought, as it was likely that a few students would get ahead of themselves and take on tasks that were higher than their own abilities.